The Iona Institute has long argued that the logic of the equality argument when applied to the family is that
no particular kind of family should be granted any special standing whatever,
including marriage whether same-sex or opposite-sex.

It appears that one the great doyennes of
family diversity ideology, Professor Judith Stacey,
agrees.

In a debate at New York University Law
School, Ryan Anderson, one of the authors of ‘What is Marriage?’, asked her
precisely that question.

Tellingly she answered: “Why should there be marriage
at all?”

She wondered why marriage should be limited to two people
and why it should be monogamous?  Her answer? “Nothing in my view gives the
State that particular interest”.

She points out that she has argued for the
decriminalisation of polygamy although not for polygamy as
such.

Needless to say she doesn’t believe children
need a mother and a father but simply two parents in a low conflict
relationship. (Where does that leave single parent families in her
view?)

She opines that three parents might be
better than two, pointing out that while we have no studies which examine this,
in the future we could have those studies because three parent families are becoming
more common.

Most tellingly of all, she then says we should “get rid of the
sexual family, there’s no reason in the contemporary world to base our
relationships necessarily on sex”. (My italics).

She obviously can’t literally mean we should
abolish the sexual family because that would be impossible, so presumably she means it should not enjoy special
status. That would have to mean sexual relationships between both opposite-sex
couples and same-sex couples should not have special
status.

And this is the logic of egalitarianism
applied to the family. Once you say there is no special advantage to having the
love of your own mother and father, then why should the sexual union of a man
and a woman have special status?

But if the sexual union of a man and a woman
shouldn’t enjoy special status, then why should any kind of sexual
relationship?

We keep hearing about ‘equal marriage’ but
really egalitarians should be talking about ‘equal families’. It makes sense,
given their starting point, that they should be in favour of same-sex marriage,
but they should also be in favour of removing the special status of marriage
entirely.

Or have our home-grown egalitarians thought
of some reason to give marriage per se special status that eludes Professor Stacey and means we don’t have to have ‘family equality’?